We were right at kilometer 82, the start of the four-day Inca Trail route. It was gorgeous and peaceful and the snow-capped mountains were simply stunning. We got all our gear, slung on our backpacks, and headed off:

The first day was short compared with what was to come but it was still tough because we had those heavy bags and our sleeping gear. The temperature ranged from almost 80 in the hot sun to dipping down to freezing in the night so we needed to have clothes for all occasions. And since we were entering a rain forest, we needed to be ready in case of a sudden downpour. That first day we each carried enough water to fill a small lake which added to our weight, especially since we drank a lot less than we had counted on. Our guide Angel, who was young, fun, very cool, and actually seemed to like the fact that we were constantly joking and laughing hysterically, took advantage of the few moments when we had our mouths shut to tell us about Peruvian, Andean, and Inca history. Illustrating his points were many beautiful ruins built intricately into the landscape:

As we passed by and talked with other groups of trekkers, we realized that we were the only ones actually lugging all our belongings on our backs. Everyone else had a little backpack with a small bottle of water and some sunblock - WTF. You see, we were under the impression that everyone carries their own stuff and extra porters are only reserved for the aged and weak. Apparently we were wrong because it turned out that we were the exceptions, with all the other gringos looking at us like we were crazy. Angel told us that the second day would be extremely difficult (12 kilometers, mostly on a very steep uphill incline) while the third day would be the longest (about 16 kilometers both up and downhill). He suggested that we hire porters to carry our stuff on those days. The four of us talked it over and decided to get the porters even though we felt like total pussies. It was probably the best decision we made. It’s a lot easier to appreciate your surroundings when you’re not on the verge of dying:

The second day truly was killer as we climbed what seemed an unending super-steep path of stone stairs for hours. As Ultra later told me, “You don’t know how many times I cursed Angel and called him “diablo” in my mind.” When I finally reached the top of what’s known as Dead Woman’s Pass, I was standing 4,215 meters above sea level. (That’s 13,828 feet for you Yankees.) I’d never done anything so physically challenging but it was worth every ounce of pain:

The third day of the Inca Trail was the most beautiful because we were walking in the heart of the rain forest. It had rained all the previous night and there was still mist and fog for most of the day which gave everything a slightly surreal quality. My camera takes very standard pictures and cannot do justice to the beauty that I saw that day:

If I got offered a job as a host for a travel show, I would take it in a heartbeat:

There were more Inca ruins everywhere and I felt like I was in another world. There was a strike throughout all of Peru but I wouldn’t know it from where I was. The world could have come to a stop but I would still be walking alone in my own universe, oblivious to the rest of humanity:

The fog rolled in and out all day; it was so gorgeous it was almost too painful to watch:

On our last morning, we woke at 4:30 AM and started making our way to our personal mecca, the place that our journey revolved around, Machu Picchu. It was still foggy and misting when we finally caught our first glimpse:

We were almost at the gates of our promised land…

My ten days in Peru were full of adventure. The four of us had gone out for dinner last Monday evening thinking that we´d be leaving for the Inca Trail early the next morning. When we returned to the hotel after dinner we received a call from someone who did not introduce himself. The mystery man told us in broken English that the farmers were going on strike at 2:00 AM and that we had to pack our bags and leave Cusco immediately or else we would be stuck and miss our Inca Trail trip. Our initial reaction was shock followed by questions like what strike and is it even going to be safe driving around?. Ultra managed to ask in Spanish about where we would sleep at night and the man said that he did not know. We decided that we weren’t going anywhere until we spoke with someone from the agency who could actually explain to us in better detail what was going on.

Finally, one of the contacts from our agency called us back and he was much more helpful. Again Ultra did the talking, though perhaps that wasn’t the best idea. She kept telling him things like “I don’t want the farmers attacking me in my tent” and “I like life. I like to live” which would cause us to fall into fits of giggling. The man must’ve thought we were gringos locos. Finally, when she could no longer hide her own muffled laughter, Ultra told him, “I’m laughing because I’m so sad” and quickly hung up the phone.

Angel, our guide for the Inca Trail who we’d met a few days prior, also stopped by the hotel to talk to us in person. He explained that the farmers strike was local to Cusco and that on Wednesday the 9th there would be a general strike throughout all of Peru. Angel insisted that the strike would only last one day, during which time we would be so far removed from anything that it wouldn’t even affect us, and by the time we’d be done with the Inca Trail everything would be back to normal. We figured we might as well just go for it - the main focus of our trip had always been the Inca Trail. We prepared for it, bought equipment for it, and it seemed crazy not to go through with it. Angel said he would come back for us in one hour and we rushed to our rooms to get everything ready.

We set off right before 11:00 pm in a mini van with Angel, the driver, and two porters. The driver turned on the radio and an eclectic mix of American ’80s pop songs started playing. Ultra and I sang along and acted goofy to lighten the mood. All was well till the first road block. Large stones were put out on the road and we had to stop. A bus and another minivan were already standing there and a few men from the vehicles were quickly moving the rocks over to one side of the road. As we were finally able to continue, a rock was thrown at the side of our van; a little freaky but luckily it missed the window. We continued on the highway for another 30 minutes until we came to another, larger, roadblock. There were already about five vehicles stopped from both directions and a group of about 30 farmers were standing on the side of the road. This situation seemed more tense. Even Angel looked worried; he got out of the car with one of the porters without a word to us. Our driver turned the car around and we waited. We knew that we couldn’t exactly head back to Cusco either since by now there were sure to lots more roadblocks going up. Luckily, a compromise was reached and the farmers agreed to let the other men move the rocks since it was only about midnight. As happy as I was about the compromise, I really felt bad, like we’d crossed a picket line. These farmers were simply protesting for better wages and working conditions, something that I take for granted everyday, and I felt like a total jerk for going along on my merry way.

We were still a bit of a ways from the make-shift campsite we were heading for at kilometer 82 of the Inca Trail, our starting point. Our driver decided not to take any more chances on the highway and took to the unpaved, unlit, dirt back roads. We drove with just our high beams and occasional lights to illuminate the way. The music was still playing but quietly and nobody felt like singing. Well, I sort of did feel like singing but I figured it would be inappropriate and obnoxious, and I’m obnoxious enough already in the daytime. My companions deserved a break from my big mouth and off-key singing.

Finally, we saw a sign for kilometer 82 and pulled into the campsite. We’d been expecting other groups to be there already but it turned out that we were the first. The sky was a dark navy but sparkled with fat bright stars that you could never see in the city. The porters quickly set up our tents by the headlights of the car. We put our bags inside, grabbed our flashlights, peed in nearby bushes, and finally got into our sleeping bags to try to get some rest for the exhausting adventure that awaited us. A little while later we heard more cars pull up, American and German voices reverberating in the night, tents being set up. About 4:00 AM, beams from flashlights and the sounds of men’s voices and dogs barking woke me up but I was too tired to care who or what it was and fell back asleep. In the morning Angel told us that he’d spoken with other guides and that several groups did not make it.

We’d been lucky. We were about to head into the Andes, into the depths of the Peruvian rain forest, to forget the rest of the world for four days.

But since I am on a super-sucky-slow Internet connection and am completely exhausted from waking up at 4 AM this morning and hiking to Machu Picchu (not to mention the other three days of intense hiking), you will have to wait. I think it´ll be worth it. Now I must go and fall dead asleep.

As of this morning I feel much better but it’s now three nights in a row that I’ve hardly slept. Still, I was able to enjoy today which consisted of a full day tour to the Sacred Valley of the Incas, or something like that, since all the Inca stuff starts sounding alike after a while. I’ve seen tons of llamas, alpacas, vicunas, and other furry mammals, as well as guinea pigs which are a Peruvian delicacy. I’ve been in a restaurant where they have live guinea pigs and you can choose the one that you would like to gobble up for dinner. After seeing those cuties, as well as the fully roasted ones (pictures when I get back), there is no way I am going to even try one. I did try a bit of alpaca meat; tasted beef-like with a slight liverish aftertaste.

Most of yesterday and today was spent seeing some amazing Incan ruins. I’ve been to some absolutely breath-taking sights today in the valleys. Snow-capped mountains, terraces for irrigation, and centuries-old structures. Andean people in native dress posing for photos with their llamas for a small donation. Markets full of colorful hats, gloves, ponchos, and everything in between. Tomorrow we have a day for ourselves so we’ll just hang around Cusco and take it easy.

I will be heading out for the Inca Trail on Tuesday morning. From some of the folks I’ve talked to in the last two days, it will be amazing and exhilirating but also tough, especially the second day. During the day the sun is hot enough to wear short-sleeves. But it is winter here with the sun setting just after 5:00 pm and temperatures falling to freezing or below. I have come woefully underdressed and will have to layer up like a snowman after dark.

If I don’t have a chance to write tomorrow, then I won’t be back in the blogosphere until probably Saturday. Wish me luck.

After Ultra, B, E, and I checked into our hotel we went out for breakfast which was a funny affair in a way that I cannot make sound funny right now.  A long cappucino spoon was involved in the hilarity.  Next we walked around the neighborhood of Miraflores and went to several stores/markets with all sorts of crafts plus anything and everything made from alpaca.  After a really good lunch - I had chicken sald with avocado - we went on a tour of downtown Lima.

Lima has some beautiful parts, including plazas with fountains surrounded by grand churches and official buildings from the early 1800’s.  It is a style of architecture that I had seen before in Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Dominican Republic; a style I happen to really like.  Our guide took us to the catacombs under an old church and we saw lots of bones.  Lots and lots of bones.  It was kinda cool.

Since it is winter here the sun set about 6:00 pm, by which time I felt almost high from lack of sleep.  As we rode on the bus towards our hotel, we went along a curving road on the top of a cliff overlooking the beach.  The sea and sky were both a gorgeous navy color and the building and boardwalk along the beach were lit up.  There was a restaurant built on a pier in the water which was all lit up too.  It was absolutely breath-taking.

On an unrelated note, I now know that I don’t like pisco sours.

But my whole point is that I’ve done very little research on where I’m going. Normally I would have read through three different guide books, learned basic social customs, and even memorized some polite phrases in the native language. For this trip, however, I’ve only read up a bit about what to bring for the actual Inca Trail. Today I decided that maybe I could just put my MLS to good use and actually google some more information, which is how I came upon a site that goes into detail about each of the four days of the Inca Trail. Of course I realized that this would be a pretty intense four days otherwise I would not have been going insane on the elliptical machine these last few weeks. But now that I see phrases such as “arduous journey”, “quad-killing climb”, several mentions of “steep climbs”, and a “final push up a 50-step, nearly vertical climb”, I wonder if I won’t be calling for a llama service to get me to the top. Another thing I did not know is that “if you’re lucky, you can catch a glimpse of the ever-playful spectacled bears”. I like bears as much as the next girl and would love to take a cute little cub home with me but I’m not sure if I want a full-grown carnivore near my tent. Really, has anyone heard of an “ever-playful” bear?

The best part of the trail is apparently on the second day: “The 2 ½ hour climb is a mental and physical challenge, subjecting trekkers to a killer sun on the way up, and thin air and bitterly cold winds at the summit. Don’t be surprised if snow or freezing rain greets you at the summit. Inevitably, however, the mind-blowing views will distract you from the body-numbing cold and physically demanding ascent.” I’m one of those freaks of nature who are still chilly in 75 degree weather. Yeah, I’ll bet those “mind-blowing views” will be just fantastic when I’m dead of hypothermia. I’ll be shacking up with a llama just to get through the night. Then again, that’s not a bad idea. I might have to bring a video camera along. The money I make on the llama video will be able to pay for my next trip. Somewhere with a sandy beach and a hammock under a palm tree.

On the other hand, being at home these two days gave me plenty of time to remember when D and I went to Newport a few years ago. We had a super time and knew that we would eventually go back. Some of the highlights of that trip were:

• eating lobster, and not just any lobster but the BEST LOBSTER IN THE WORLD
• going to the old-fashioned candy stores and buying way more fudge than two people should be legally allowed to buy
• going to the arcade and playing Time Crisis and other shooter games
• playing silly games of chance at the arcade to win tickets even though the 573 tickets that we won only got us a candy bar and a plastic necklace
• walking from the hotel, through the town, to the start of the Cliff Walk. Doing the entire Cliff Walk, walking back into town, and barely making it to our hotel. Realizing that we had somehow miscalculated the distances and that we basically walked about eight miles without food or water
• me having to pee really bad at the start of the Cliff Walk and finding that there are no bathrooms anywhere. Looking around, seeing that there is no one around us, pulling down my pants and undies, and going about my business…just as an SUV rounds the corner and parks not far from me
• finishing up my business as quickly as possible, pulling the undies and pants back up, grabbing D’s hand, and running away before anyone actually got out of the car

Oh Newport, how I wish we could’ve shared these last few days together.

It was Easter week so the square was filled with vendors. Little Sister and I binged on snacks of all kinds and browsed the stalls full of traditional marionettes, colorful glassware, and beautiful stationary. The square also has the Old Town Hall and Astronomical Clock. Every hour, figurines move though it’s hard to see with the throngs of people that gather at the base:

Old Town is full of really cool buildings:

A short walk away is the beautiful Charles Bridge with its 30 statues of various saints. It was impossible to take a good photo on the bridge because of all the people, so I took one of the side view:

From the bridge you get a great view of the river and Prague Castle:

From the castle there are also some amazing views:

It took us two tries but we finally came upon the John Lennon Wall which has definitely been altered since last time I was there. I’m pretty sure that what’s left of Lennon’s face and head did not have a funky rainbow-colored Dr. Seuss hat a decade ago:

Finally, here is Little Sister warming herself by the giant roasting meat:

This was our favorite spot to hang out at when we got especially cold (which was all the time) until the man with the ax in his hand came up to us.

So there you have it - Prague in a nutshell. I recommend going there in warmer weather so that you don’t have to thaw out next to roasting hams.

Thinning The Herd were the first band to play, and the four of us stood right at the front screaming and whistling like maniacs. It was the first time I heard them play and I gotta say they are pretty good (and not just because my friend is in the band). I knew that there were several other bands playing afterwards but from what D told me I was under the impression that we would head out somewhere else. After the guys got their gear off the stage, I asked Richie where we’ll be going and he said that we should just hang out since Suicide City was going to be playing. I almost fell over when he said this because Suicide City is Jennifer Arroyo’s band after she left Kittie and I’ve been wanting to check them out for two years now. I went up to D all excited and said, “You won’t believe it. Suicide City is playing here tonight.” “Oh yeah,” he said. “I guess I forgot to tell you that part.” Yeah, thanks. Maybe I’ll forget to tell him when I’m pregnant with our first child.

There were three more bands playing before Suicide City. One band, who also had a good sound, had one uber-fan who was also completely blitzed out of his brain. He was stumbling around crashing into people and basically being a one-man mosh pit. At one point he went up to Eddie, got all up in his face, and started screaming “I’ll fuck you up man”. I think we all clenched our fists instinctively, ready to throw punches if need be, but the guy just stumbled away. Eventually he laid down on the low speakers in front of the stage and closed his eyes. Finally he got up, tried to cause more ruckus, and got booted out of the bar permanently.

Another one of the bands was so ridiculous and trying so hard to be badass rock n roll that I couldn’t even take them seriously. For one of the songs the lead singer called up his father, Big Bill, to the stage. Big Bill looked like he was in his sixties although I have a feeling he was probably much younger. He was dressed like he just came back from his weekly Hell’s Angels joy ride, complete with bandanna over long hair and a leather vest. Seriously, a leather vest over bare arms is probably one of the hardest things to pull off, especially when you’re an old fart with chicken elbows. Anyway, Big Bill was rockin’ out with the rest of the band, singing along and playing air guitar. That alone was worth the cover charge. Finally, for the last song, the band invited everyone to come on stage. I hung back with D and Ultra but Eddie and Richie jumped on like maniacs, started moshing around, and the finally took flying leaps off the stage. They had the biggest grins on their faces (think kid in a candy store times ten) and it was totally awesome to see them rocking out like that.

It was almost 1:00 a.m. by the time Suicide City took the stage but it was worth the wait. They were really intense and put on a great show, with Jenn doing her signature grinding and licking of her bass. Afterwards she happened to be walking past me so I told her what a great show they played and she thanked me. She continued walking and suddenly there were D and Eddie hot on her trail. D spotted me and said, “Come on, we’re gonna take a picture with Jenn.” We found her at the front of the bar and she posed for a picture between me and D. Unfortunately we only had a phone camera and the picture came out so dark that you can’t even see anybody.

When we were posing for the photo I started to tell Jenn about how D and I went to the Kittie show at L’Amour several years back and that she played the bass so fiercely that a few minutes into the show D had (to put it nicely) a stirring in his bowels. He went off to the bathroom but the men’s room didn’t have a door on the stall. Still, when you gotta go you gotta go. So my man pulled down his pants, squatted over the toilet, and did his thing as people walked past. One guy even stopped and said “Damn man, you’re hardcore.” Yes he is; he rocks.

I thought D was going to divorce me for telling Jennifer Arroyo how her bass playing led him to take a shit. Instead, he was so excited that he interrupted me and finished the story himself. He even reenacted the scene by squatting in front of Jenn so that she could really visualize the whole situation. She totally loved it, was quite impressed with this scatological tale, and said she was going to tell the guys in the band.

Now that’s fuckin’ rock n roll.

I’ll put up pictures from Prague when I’m home but for now let me say that the city was just as beautiful as I remembered it from ten years ago.  Little Sister and I walked around a bit, especially in the Old Town, but it was pretty cold and it snowed every day that I was there.  The weird thing about the snow was that it would just start up out of the blue and for the next half hour there would be thick flakes flying around, giving Prague a snowglobe effect.  Then the sun would come out, the temperature would rise a bit, and it the snow seemed like a dream - until it started snowing again a few hours later.  Little Sister and I did a lot of sitting around in cafes, drinking tea and coffee while sharing chocolate cake.

The Old Town Square was filled with booths; vendors were selling everything from traditional Czech wooden toys to jewelry to food of every kind.  At one point we were so cold that we stood next to this big metal cooking apparatus, in which were roasting about six giant hams, just to warm up.  The apparatus was so big that we weren’t very noticable, though we probably looked a bit strange standing with our backs to it and our hands behind our backs touching the metal for warmth.  We would’ve stood there longer but a man with a small axe in one hand came around to us, took Little Sister by the hand and examined her glove (was he checking for grease stains?) and said something that sounded like Kaputo Kaputo. I don’t know what that means but we left there right quick.

Otherwise, Prague was great but uneventful.  Though we were amused by a drunk older man standing in front of a trendy clothing store, dancing to Baby Got Back which was blaring from the store.  His eyes were closed and he had a beatific smile on his face like there was nothing else he’d rather be doing.